Imaginative children's story about two boys who got lost and had an adventure. A slightly longer short story for bedtime or a perfect for quiet time.
Hayden was eight. He was a happy little boy who loved nothing more than going on adventures. He found adventures everywhere he went but on this particular day, his adventure turned into one of his worst nightmares. Do you want to know what happened?
It was a sunny day in April and Hayden went to the Farmers’ Market with his mother. The Farmers’ Market was on every Saturday had lots of lovely fresh fruit and vegetables, bread, cheese, meat, and bunches of beautiful flowers. Hayden thought it was boring. The only thing good about being there was bumping into friends and playing on the monkey bars. Seriously, that was the only thing that he went for. Who wants to go vegetable shopping? Boring!
Hayden was helpful and carried a shopping bag but it was full and he had to hold a bag of mushrooms in his hands. Mushrooms. How he hated mushrooms. They were his worst nightmare. He hoped they weren't having them for dinner. Across the market, he saw his friend Freddie and ran off to chat with him. Great he thought, now there would be something better they could both do. As he reached Freddie, Hayden tripped over a stone, fell onto the floor and all of the mushrooms fell out of the bag onto the floor next to him. “Good move” laughed Freddie as he bent down to help Hayden pick up the mushrooms.
As they were putting the mushrooms back into the bag, the sky went black and thunder rolled in the sky above them. When Hayden and Freddie looked around, they found that they were no longer in the Farmer’s Market, they were in the weirdest looking place and it didn't look good. They were surrounded by giant mushrooms the size of houses that looked like houses too. Had they shrunk or were these mushrooms really giant? What was going on? The mushroom houses had doors and windows, some had little chimneys with smoke coming out of the top. Some of them looked pretty and had flowers in their gardens. But others were black with broken windows and doors hanging off their hinges.
“WHOA! What happened?” shouted Hayden stepping back in alarm.
“I don’t know, but this is the freakiest looking place I’ve ever seen in my life" replied Freddie also taking a step backwards to look at the scene of giant mushroom houses in front of them. The house closest to them was the smallest of the mushroom houses but still way bigger than the both of them.
As they were looking at the houses, they noticed one of the doors opening. "Quick Freddie, let's hide". The two boys quickly hid behind the biggest tree they'd ever seen and watched two mushroom children walk out of the mushroom house with their mushroom parents. The children were quarrelling.
"No" said the boy to his sister.
"I said I don't want to go, it’s your turn”.
“You’re both coming” said the father as they all got into a bright red mushroom car.
“Let’s have a look in the house, we’ll be safe in there” said Freddie running from behind the tree. When they reached the house, Hayden pushed the door open and the boys walked inside.
“I’m not sure about safe” said Hayden... “but this is epic” they both said at the exactly the same time. “Jinx”.
The house looked so cute inside, it had perfect mushroom furniture including a mushroom table, four mushroom chairs, mushroom-shaped plates, mushroom-shaped cups and mushroom-shaped salt and pepper pots.
“I wonder if they eat mushrooms as well as live in them, drive them, sit on them, eat off them”.
“Er, I hope not, cannibal mushrooms is all we need" replied Freddie.
They heard the car pull up again in the driveway. "You need to be more careful" said the mushroom mother to the little mushroom girl wiping her dress as they walked towards the big red door.
"Yikes, they're coming back, hide". The boys ran upstairs and hid under big mushroom beds as they heard the door handle turn and the family walked back inside the house.
Father mushroom smelt the air, there was something different about it. Mother mushroom looked at the table, her place settings had been moved, someone had touched something. The mushroom boy looked at his toys in the corner, someone had been playing with his toys. "Someone is here, we need to find out who" said the father mushroom angrily, now looking around the house in rage.
Upstairs the boys were scared, they could hear the family were not happy. What should they do? How could they escape? Hayden looked out of the window.
"We could jump".
"Are you mad, replied Freddie."
"Yes, let's go, there's no other option, unless you want to be the meat in the mushroom pie for later".
The two boys jumped out of the window, rolled onto the grass in superb stunt-like moves that they were both extremely impressed with and started to run.
"Quick let's take the car it will be a great get-away"
"We can't drive" replied Freddie.
"We couldn't stunt roll out of windows until now" laughed Hayden.
"True, let's go".
Freddie jumped into the driver's seat, turned the key (who leaves keys in the car) and put his foot down, "wooohooo I'm driving" he shouted in delight. Hayden looked behind to see the mushroom family running after them shaking their mushroom fists.
They drove past a mushroom fire-station, a few mushroom shops and a mushroom theatre. This place was something else. They continued past an enormous dark forest and after a few minutes came to a large mushroom school.
"Let's go in there" said Hayden, "schools are definitely safe".
Freddie parked the car, (who knows where he got these skills from) and the boys walked towards the big doors at the entrance. "We can't go that way, someone might see us, let's go around the back" he said.
They scouted around the side of the school looking inside the windows as they went. Inside the classrooms were rows of desks with mushroom children all facing the same way, these classes had hundreds of mushroom children in each class.
"Hello class"
"Hello Mr Pea" said a chorus of little voices.
They had a closer look at the teacher, who was indeed a round green pea with little pokey legs and arms, wearing round green glasses on his round green face.
"We need to get out of here before anyone sees us".
Hayden and Freddie started running. As they reached the edge of the school they turned the corner and ran straight into a student. The student was an older mushroom boy. He was big and not at all happy as he'd dropped his books onto the floor.
"Watch where you're going you fools" he snapped. Then he looked at Hayden and Freddie. "You're not mushrooms, what are you doing here? Well, is anyone going to answer?"
"We're not sure" said Hayden. "We got here by mistake" added Freddie.
“Lies. Lies Lies” yelled the student. “You're not allowed on this property. You're spying. We have been warned about you. Coming onto our land and taking our secrets. You won't get away with this". He ruffled in his bag and took out a fine thin skipping rope. With a quick whip of his hands, he lassoed it around the boys. Then ran around them like a whirlwind wrapping them up in the rope. They had their arms, bodies and legs bound together. "Wait there" he said, "like you've got a choice" and walked away laughing, pleased with his capture.
Hayden and Freddie were stuck. They wriggled and wriggled then tried moving their hands in different positions to try and get out of the rope that was now digging into their wrists. They knew they didn't have long to escape but how were they going to get out of this one.
NEED A BREAK? STOP HERE AND COME BACK LATER
Up above them Freddie saw a squirrel in the tree. "Perhaps we can get it to bite through the rope" said Freddie.
"Oh yeah, let me just ask it" laughed Hayden. "Oi, hello, hola" yelled Hayden to the squirrel. The squirrel stopped running along the branch and looked down at them. The boys looked at each other in amazement. "Hello" said Hayden again, a little more cautiously this time. "Can you hear me?"
"Maybe" said the squirrel rather haughtily. "What are you doing tied up down there like a bag of nuts? Are you nuts?"
"He is" said Freddie laughing at Hayden.
"No, you are" retorted Hayden.
"Now now, no need to argue, you're either a nut or you're not. Either way, I'm not going to eat you, you're too big and you'll give me indigestion" interrupted the squirrel.
"We got here by mistake, we're not meant to be here and we just want to go home, can you help us?" said Hayden hopefully.
"I'm not sure I can said the squirrel, the children will be out for lunch soon and they come looking for me, I have to hide from them. Thousands of little mushrooms running around screaming, jumping up and down and throwing seeds at me."
"Please, we don't want the student to come back and get us".
"OK OK, I'll see what I can do".
The squirrel ran down the tree and started to nibble at the rope. Whilst the rope was thin, it was very tough. Her teeth could bite into it but not very fast. There was not going to be enough time before the children came out for lunch.
"We need to move faster".
The squirrel called to her friends and in seconds the boys were surrounded by squirrels also biting on the rope. Finally it broke and the boys were set free.
"Th-th-thank you" they both said looking around them at the squirrels under the tree and hundreds of mushroom children coming towards them.
"Now, go to the forest, find Renelda and tell her I sent you. My name is Zenelda. She will know what to do". Hayden and Freddie thanked the squirrels again, ran back to the little red mushroom car and drove off quickly to the edge of the forest.
The forest was very dark and not very friendly looking. "Here we go again" said Hayden thinking about how they always ended up in some kind of crazy caper.
"What choice do we have right", replied Freddie.
"Right" agreed Hayden, "come on then".
"So we're looking for someone called Renelda in a massive dark forest. Great. Who even is Renelda. What even is Renelda?"
"I think it may be another squirrel" replied Hayden. "Renelda, Zenelda, sound like sister names".
"OK clever clogs, are you some sort of squirrel whisperer now?". They both laughed.
As they walked through the forest, it became darker and darker. The floor was damp and it had a strange smell. Ferns grew at the side of a pathway with mushrooms growing underneath the leaves. As they looked around they could see mushrooms growing up the trees, out of patches of moss and even at the side of rocks. There were mushrooms everywhere.
This place was creepy but they carried on walking and could hear faint singing:
"They're here, they're here, we've finally got them,
They'll never escape, it's a trick it's a trick.
We'll chop off their fingers and all of their toes,
We've got hold of them now, to get rid of our woes".
"Did you hear that" said Freddie. "They'll cut off our toes to get rid of their woes". "I quite like my toes, I'm not sure I want them cutting off".
"Ha, I quite like my fingers", laughed Hayden, I'm not sure I want them cutting off either".
On a tree close-by they saw a large R carved into the bark. The tree next to it had a large Z carved into the bark. "We're here, we've found it" declared Freddie calling out Renelda's name at the top of his voice. Nothing happened. He called out again. Nothing happened.
"Let me try" said Hayden calling out Renelda's name. An old squirrel came to the branch of the tree above them.
"Did someone call my name?".
Hayden explained what had happened as Renelda listened in amazement before giving strictly spoken instructions. "Go back through the woods, don't stop and don't listen to the singing or they will take you. Take the car back to the mushroom family. Then, when you're in a safe place, eat this.” She gave them a bag of berries. "Think about where you want to go and you'll be able to get home" said Renelda. "Do not stop and do not think about anything else except home once you've eaten the berry".
"Thank you" they both said at once. "We won't forget this".
"Don't worry" she said, "if I ever need a favour in return, I know I can always find you at the Farmer's Market on a Saturday morning".
"Er.... right" said the boys confused and weary after the day's adventures.
Once they dropped the car off at the mushroom family's mushroom house, they found a safe place again behind the big tree.
"Right let's do this" said Freddie holding the berries and passing one to Hayden, "Here you go squirrel whisperer".
"Oh thanks racing driver extraordinaire" he laughed.
Out of the corner of his eye, Hayden saw a mushroom riding a cow. Huh, that's weird. He ate the berry hoping to be back in the Farmer's Market again but he couldn't get the cow out of his mind. They held hands and wished to go home.
Sparks flew and they found themselves somewhere new. It was not the Farmer's Market. They looked around and all they could see were cows. A big sign in front of them announced 'Welcome to Cowville' and at that moment they knew they were about to have another adventure.
To be continued...
Find out more about the mother and son duo who wrote this story for sharing with you on Kids Dream Stories.
Read other free children's stories on Kids Dream Stories.
Safety note for children: It is 2021 and this is just a story. Do not borrow people's cars without asking, that's called stealing. Don't go into random houses uninvited, that's called breaking and entering. Definitely don't eat sweets from strangers, or you too may find yourself in Cowville, and be careful which kinds of mushrooms you eat.
Note for parents: As I was researching mushrooms as part of our little story (ok, loosely researching) I came across this amazing film [https://fantasticfungi.com] — incredible to watch, truly recommend. It's shot beautifully; an educational documentary by Louie Schwartzberg. Rated PG.
